Immigrant Children

Ohio Train Derailment And Nebraska Child Labor Scandal Signs Of Corporate Abuse!

Ronald 2 Comments

Sadly, in 2023, we have examples of corporate abuse as seen with the recent East Palestine, Ohio derailment of dangerous chemicals, on a train two miles long, with only two workers operating the train.

Also, in Nebraska, we have early teens doing dirty and dangerous work as cleaning workers in a slaughter house, breaking the child labor laws, and exploiting immigrant children.

How this is possible is due to continued big business and conservative and Republican attempts to weaken federal regulation, as occurred under Donald Trump and earlier Republican Presidents, despite the work of Barack Obama to strengthen such regulation.

The issues of government regulation of business and labor rights were dealt with in the Progressive Era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; again in the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt; and again in the 1960s under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. It emerged again in the Obama Presidency, but then was backtracked on under Donald Trump, as with earlier Republican Presidents, particularly Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

It is essential to have actions to prevent the kinds of tragedies that have occurred recently. The answer is not to attack Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and President Biden. And the Republican attack on the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other federal regulatory agencies must stop!

The Republican Party Heritage And Principles Are In Death Spiral after 167 Years

Ronald 6 Comments

The Republican Party was founded in March 1854 as a reform party, with the major principle at its founding being opposition to the expansion of slavery, and including abolitionists within its midst.

It was a Northern party which fought the Civil War and ended slavery, and for a generation, it was a party that inspired the majority of Americans.

Then, in the Gilded Age, it became corrupted by the power and influence of industrial capitalism, and conservatism reigned.

But then, Theodore Roosevelt and others who carried the name “progressive” with pride, promoted reform of the capitalistic system, but after TR’s death, while progressivism still existed in the party, it was taken over by conservatives, and the Great Depression undermined the national power of the party, as the Democrats became the majority party in the 1930s.

The battle for the future of the party was waged in the next half century liberal to moderate Republicans on one side, and hardline conservatives as their opponents, and Ronald Reagan ushered in a hard right conservatism, which became more extreme due to Newt Gingrich and other extreme conservatives since the mid 1990s.

And now we have come to a party that is in a death spiral, as we have conspiracy theorists who are taking over the party, and promoting hate, in the form of racism, nativism, Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and having wacky members who are advocating assassination of opposition Democrats.

So the Republican Party is now the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Louie Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley,and many other right wing Fascists, but at the leadership is Donald Trump, and the party represents now:

Family Values gone, with the caging of immigrant children.

Deficit Hawks gone, with added massive deficits of tax cuts to the wealthy.

Free Trade gone, with massive taxes on foreign goods and bailouts of farmers as a result, adding to the national debt and consumer prices.

Limited Federal Government gone, with claims that what state governments report as election results should be ignored by the Congress.

Limiting the Imperial Presidency gone, with obedience by right wing members of both houses of Congress to the whims and desires of Donald Trump, even continuing as this author and blogger writes.

Kamala Harris Main Arguments To Use Against Mike Pence In VP Debate On Wednesday Evening

Ronald 1 Comment

Arguably the most important Vice Presidential debate since the first one in 1976 is taking place this Wednesday in Salt Lake City, Utah, when Vice President Mike Pence confronts California Senator Kamala Harris.

The possibility of a female Vice President in the next Presidential term heightens interest in this debate between a Vice President who has been unwilling to express his own views with his President, by every measure we have; and a Senator, who headed the Justice system of the state with one eighth of the American people residing, in California.

Kamala Harris needs to address major issues with Mike Pence, and if necessary, be persistent!

These include:

Why are you NOT asserting yourself in this COVID 19 crisis, and allowing Trump family members to run rampant over your responsibility to the nation to invoke the 25th Amendment?

Why are you not emphasizing masks, social distancing, and avoiding large rallies on your own part?

Why have you not condemned white nationalism groups, including QAnon and “Proud Boys”?

Why do you refuse to resist the policy of favoritism toward Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and other dictators, and the worsening relations of the nation with NATO, Canada, Japan, and South Korea?

Why do you show no concern about the immediate loss of health care for 20 million or more people, especially in the midst of a world wide pandemic?

How do you explain all of the failures of Trump, including on;

the Mexico wall:

no health care alternative and plans to gut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security;

the inhumane treatment of immigrant children and their parents at the border;

the widespread corruption of Trump Cabinet officers and others;

Trump’s failure to match Barack Obama’s economic recovery; Trump’s constant attacks on veterans, Muslims, the disabled, and those who have died, including John McCain, and lack of respect for Ruth Bader Ginsburg;

and so many other shortcomings?

Harris will perform very well, with compassion, concern, empathy, decency, ethics, morality and persistence in asserting herself, and this will make her an excellent and principled Vice President under a President Joe Biden, who has the same character traits as she does.

And if circumstance puts Kamala Harris into the Oval Office, the nation will be well served and be in competent hands!

The Jamal Khashoggi Torture And Murder The Greatest Foreign Policy Crisis For Donald Trump, Undermining Human Rights For Personal Financial Gain, An Impeachable Act!

Ronald 3 Comments

Donald Trump has just confronted the greatest foreign policy crisis of his Presidency, and it seems that he will work to undermine human rights for personal financial gain.

Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and the heir to become King when his elderly father passes away, is clearly involved in ordering the horrific torture and murder of Saudi national but American resident Jamal Khashoggi, who was a journalist for the Washington Post.

The thought that Trump, and his Tea Party Kansas Congressman Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and his National Security Adviser John Bolton, would work to defend Saudi Arabia after this horrific assassination, and be more concerned about defense profits and financial gains, over the life of a human being so brutally murdered, is enough to make one vomit!

Trump is now reaching a new level of obscenity in defending torture and murder, and that makes him complicit with Mohammed bin Salman as a war criminal, and both of them should be immediately removed from power, and sent to the Hague to be tried for war crimes against humanity, and in the case of Trump, that would include his harsh treatment of immigrants and their children at the US-Mexico border!

How Vice President Mike Pence, who professes to be a “good Christian” can sit back and accept what is going on, and NOT condemn Trump and break with him morally and ethically, makes it clear that Mike Pence should immediately resign from the Vice Presidency as a moral degenerate, a crook who should be prosecuted for complicity in the same human rights violations of his boss.

This government, elected by Russian collusion, corrupt to the core, destructive of common decency, and promoting Fascism and undermining of the rule of law and the Constitution, needs to be repudiated in November, and action taken as soon as possible to remove this cancer from the body politic of America. That means movement toward impeachment, and pressure on the Republican Party to realize it is time for them to abandon their dictatorial leader, and vote to remove him in a Senate trial.

We have lived through 21 months of nightmares, and have reached a point of no return, and any decent American will see the need to remove Donald Trump and Mike Pence from power as soon as possible, and in the interim, break off diplomatic relations and economic relations with Saudi Arabia until reform comes to that nation, including the removal of Mohammed bin Salman from power and his prosecution and conviction for torture and murder of Jamal Khashoggi!

Trump’s Crime Against Children And Parents At The Mexico Border: A Crime Against Humanity, For Which His Administration Should Be Prosecuted!

Ronald 8 Comments

It is enough to make any decent human being vomit to witness what is happening at the US border with Mexico in Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico, where immigrant migrant children are being ripped from the arms and protection of their mothers and fathers by border agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who are acting like Nazi Gestapo agents.

Babies being breastfed by their mothers; wailing toddlers; children of older age; and preteens and teenagers are being effectively incarcerated by order of the racist, nativist government of Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions and others in the Trump regime, in former Walmarts and newly planned “Tent Cities” in the hot summer in Texas, reminding us of former Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio who set up such inhumane conditions, and was pardoned by Donald Trump!

And Jeff Sessions has the gall to quote the Bible in defense of the inhumanity being practiced, and Bible Toters are promoting child abuse, creating emotional damage to children which will last a lifetime, and will likely cause mental trauma that may lead to these children as adults to commit crimes in revenge for their mistreatment.

One can be certain that many parents will never find their children again as record keeping and accountability are not evident, and that there will be many cases of their babies being sold into slavery, and that sexual abuse will occur, including mixing boys of prepubescent and teenage years together, encouraging bullyism and abuse by older against younger.

The horrors of what is going on makes Trump and his government ever more lacking in ethics, morals, common decency, conscience, compassion or empathy!

The so called “family values” claim of the Republican Party is a mockery, and yet we see little reaction by Republican Congressional leaders and those in Texas!

This is a massive violation of human rights that cannot be allowed to stand, as what Trump is doing is against international law, and stains the image of all decent Americans, that we allow such abuses to go on for any amount of time without immediate rectification!

Trump and his cabinet advisers involved in this crime against humanity need to be removed and prosecuted for what they have done to our nation and its people!

Trump Policy Of Separating Children From Parents At Border A Massive Violation Of Basic Human Rights That Must Stop

Ronald 2 Comments

It is shocking news that Donald Trump’s government has made it a policy of separating young immigrant children, many of them babies and toddlers, from their parents at the border, when these people escaping gang violence, drug cartels, and bloodshed in Central America arrive at the checkpoints, and apply for safe haven status.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency have become the center of mistreatment and lack of basic humanity and compassion toward these immigrants, while Donald Trump talks as if these mostly mothers and young children are terrorists, drug dealers, and rapists, as he has been doing since he announced his Presidential campaign three years ago.

The shock is even greater that it is now documented that at least 1,500 children, many of them infants, have been handed over to foster care at a crucial age, and the government has lost contact as to where these children are.

That means many may never be reunited with their mothers or fathers or both, and in many cases, are too young to even remember who their parents are.

The emotional trauma that these children are being put through, including those old enough to remember their family members, is incalculable, and is a crime against humanity.

It seems that many of these children may have been handed over by miscalculation, lack of concern, and corruption to criminal elements, human traffickers, who will sell these children on the international market, leading to potential sexual abuse and mistreatment, and in many cases, making them slaves to those who are illegally “adopting” them.

With all of the outrages Donald Trump and his administration have been engaged in, this action and the blunders and lack of concern coming out of it, in many ways is the most egregious legal violation and crime of all.

And this from a President who claims to be “Pro Life”, and is backed by extremist right wing Evangelical Christians who have no concern about the lives of immigrants, but only about abortions being prevented, and who has a wretched Attorney General in Jeff Sessions, is enough to infuriate one beyond belief.

Every day, Donald Trump becomes more Fascist oriented, and the urgency of removing him and his ilk from office sooner rather than later, is urgent!